A Sailor's Sweetheart by W. Clark Russell

Author:W. Clark Russell [Russell, W. Clark]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781411450264
Publisher: Barnes & Noble
Published: 2017-02-14T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER XII

THE LONELY DEEP

WHEN the darkness first fell and the "Waldershare" faded in the gloom, I felt like a man that had been drugged with an opiate, quite stupefied and silly, and there were moments when I could not bring myself to believe that my present condition was indeed a reality. I said to myself, "It will all pass presently, and then I shall be looking back and exclaiming, How life-like was that vision!" But happily this confusion of mind did not last long—indeed, it was a kind of madness, and had it stayed it would have become a downright madness; and I honestly believe that the clearance was caused by my doing what I did but too seldom—I mean by praying: for I knelt me down in the top and most passionately and heartily prayed God not only to save my life but to spare my reason; and I prayed for my sweetheart too, and that God would comfort her heart during our separation, and that He would bring us together again.

My prayer being said, I felt less lonely and more calm in my mind; and if any sailor who reads this should ever find himself in such another situation of peril as I was in, let him look up to God and pray heartily, and be satisfied that he is heard, whatever comes of it. I speak from experience. I know what that prayer did for me; how it was like talking to a friend, and having a hand to hold on to; and how much more of a man I was after than I was before it.

I now began to reckon up my situation, and first I had very little doubt that the hull of the brig was sound, and would stand this and even another gale. Being, as I reckoned, chokeful of the pine planks, she was like a solid piece of timber, and she stood less chance of being bruised by the worrying of the sea by being sunk, and yielding without resistance to every motion of the waves, than had she floated on her bottom. So I had no fear that the brig would not hold together that night, more especially as even now the wind showed some signs of abating, though it was still blowing heavily; and this conviction prodigiously comforted me.

However, until the sea fell calm I should not be able to leave the top, for not only was the main-deck afloat as high as the bulwarks, but the waves repeatedly broke in whole green seas, as they are called (although they were as black as ink in the darkness, and heavily streaked with tremulous lines of phosphorus), over the deck-house, and there was no portion of the deck on which I should have been able to keep my footing for an instant. Had it not been for the brandy, I believe I should have fallen insensible, if not have died outright of exhaustion; for no words can express the suffering caused

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